Baby Boomers (circa 1946 to 1964) Generation X (circa 1965 to 1980) Millennial Generation (circa 1981 to 1996) Gen Z (post-Millennial) (circa 1997 to 2012)
The term “Silent Generation” was first documented in a 1951 Time magazine article, which claimed that the most startling fact about this generation was its silence: “By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers and mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame.” The generation's “silent” behavior ...
The United States Census Bureau defines baby boomers as "individuals born in the United States between mid-1946 and mid-1964". Landon Jones, in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980), defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1946 through 1964.
Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1960s as starting birth years and the late 1970s to early 1980s as ending birth years, with the generation being generally defined as people born from 1965 to 1980. By this definition and U.S. Census data, there are 65.2 million Gen Xers in the United States as of 2019.
Generation X Overview
Generation X refers to people born between the mid-1960s and about 1980, directly following the Baby Boomers generation.
Baby boomers got their name from a phenomenon known as the baby boom. This boom was a spike in birth rates after World War II. In the United States, around 3.4 million babies were born in 1946, more than ever before in United States history.
Baby Boomers: Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They're currently between 57-75 years old (71.6 million in the U.S.) Gen X: Gen X was born between 1965 and 1979/80 and is currently between 41-56 years old (65.2 million people in the U.S.) Gen Y: Gen Y, or Millennials, were born between 1981 and 1994/6.
The Lost Generation was the social generational cohort in the Western world that was in early adulthood during World War I. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1883 to 1900. The term is also particularly used to refer to a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the 1920s.
Here's a look at six generations of Americans in the 20th century: the Greatest Generation (or GI Generation), the Silent Generation, baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and Generation Z.
The Silent Generation: Born 1928-1945 (78-95 years old) Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (59-77 years old) Gen X: Born 1965-1980 (43-58 years old) Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (27-42 years old)
The name Generation Z is a reference to the fact that it is the second generation after Generation X, continuing the alphabetical sequence from Generation Y (Millennials).
They tend to play it safe. That's very like the Silent gen. In fact, Time magazine gave Silents their name because they played it safe, keeping their heads down and not speaking out about issues like McCarthyism and civil rights. Silents were shaped by the Great Depression when millions of Americans lost their jobs.
That is why the generations today each span 15 years with Generation Y (Millennials) born from 1980 to 1994; Generation Z from 1995 to 2009 and Generation Alpha from 2010 to 2024. And so it follows that Generation Beta will be born from 2025 to 2039.
The Greatest Generation refers to those Americans born between 1900 and 1925, many of whom fought during World War II. These individuals grew up during WWI and lived through the Great Depression and are often the parents of the Baby Boomer generation.
A Millennial is anyone born between 1980 and 1995. In the U.S., there are roughly 80 million Millennials. A member of Gen Z is anyone born between 1996 and the early-mid 2000s (end date can vary depending on source). In the U.S., there are approximately 90 million members of Gen Z, or “Gen Zers.”
Generation Jones and the Boomers
The Baby Boomer generation was born between the post-war years of 1946 to 1964. A subset of the Boomers, Generation Jones, was born in the later years of the Baby Boom, from 1954 to 1964.
The youngest celebrity Boomers include Keanu Reeves, Wanda Sykes, Don Cheadle, Nicolas Cage, Courtney Cox, Rob Lowe, Courtney Love, Vivica A.
Their higher net worth is expected: with most baby boomers financially planning for at least a few more decades, they benefit from wealth earned from long careers and have more robust retirement accounts than the silent generation, who have dipped further into retirement savings.
A common stereotype regarding Baby Boomers is that they're fear-driven, which experts believe could be due to having childhoods so close to the war era. They're also commonly referred to as “stubborn” and resistant to any sort of change.
Initially, the group born after Generation X was coined Gen Y because it was the next letter progression in the current naming schema. In the late 1990s, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe coined the term “Millennials” to describe the generation coming of age at the beginning of the 21st century.
Australia's McCrindle Research uses 1980–1994 as Generation Y (millennial) birth years. The Australian Bureau of Statistics uses 1981–1995 to define Millennials in a 2021 Census report. Psychologist Jean Twenge defines millennials as those born 1980–1994.
We generally figure three or four generations to every 100 years — in rare instances only two, in others five. The average span from one generation to the next is about 25 to 30 years. In the space of 350 years, you can estimate that there will be roughly 12 generations.